Who, what, when, where and why

25.08.2015

Emma Van Sant

Emma received her bachelor's degree in International Business and Marketing from the University of South Carolina. Before becoming Communications Manager at Sourcefabric, she worked at an environmentally conscious multinational innovation company headquartered in the USA. She has worked with large corporations and small non-profits in the past. Emma has been passionate about travel from a young age and has lived in Dubai, El Salvador, Michigan and Prague, among others.

A How-To guide to Storyteller for Newscoop

Questions, so many questions... | Photo by Abigail Keenan (CC BY 1.0)¶

If you’ve ever used the Storyteller plugin for Newscoop, there’s a good chance that you’ve had a few questions about the elements that compose the theme. If you haven’t tried out Storyteller yet, now is the perfect time to start. Our newly published guide will support you in the process of building your longform story.

How do I add ambient audio? What about fullscreen video? What is parallax scrolling? Can I see a live preview of the changes I make in the backend? How is the story structured? What if I want to change the order? What do the switches mean? Questions, so many questions...

Test story made with Storyteller

When Storyteller was first released, I was excited to do some exploring. I created a test story that included most of the feature capabilities of Storyteller to try it out. This led me to a number of successes… and a few issues that led to questions that I was afraid to ask the developers. But I tucked away my pride and asked anyway. The result? A lot of great answers that I compiled into a guide to using Storyteller for those of us that are slightly less technically inclined, but still want to create beautiful things.

What is longform?

Longform is a way of presenting news, stories, and ideas, in a manner that both takes the reader on a storytelling journey and makes full use of interactive and responsive web design. Longform articles typically contain a lot of content and often (although not exclusively) take on a journalistic or narrative form.

In fact, there is little consensus on exactly what longform articles are. David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker, describes longform as “lengthy, relaxed, deeply-reported, literary nonfiction.”

In another opinion, Matthew Rickertson, an international expert on longform, views it as a place where “practitioners use journalistic methods to research and write independently about contemporary events and issues at length in a timely manner for a broad audience.”

It is thus our view that longform should be what the creator wants it to be. Whether you use the platform for artistic expression or more investigative journalism, we are here to provide the tools to you, the creators. The rest is up to you.